“How's the woodworking going?”
James must be thinking of my brother
“It's alright,” I offer
Have you sold anything?
“No, nothing,” I say.
“It’s a hard business to break into. A lot of people don’t appreciate it.”
He tells me about a jewelry box he made that his daughter didn't want.
I have little patience for strangers.
I don't often care to disabuse them.
They call me the wrong name
I answer their questions
About things I haven't done.
I only have so much of myself
to give away.
I’ll ask the therapist on Wednesday,
“What's wrong with me? Why is it so hard to connect with others?”
It seems like there should be some kind of answer.
Something must have happened
To make me so alien
So haughty and undeserving of kinship
Strangers tell me happy birthday
And I am angry they know something about me
Dad asks me if I’m alright.
I very clearly am not. I have been trying to keep it together
So that no one will ask me what’s wrong.
“Yeah.”
He doesn’t challenge the lie.
Minutes later I break the silence:
“Well,
I’m going home.”
Poetry & Fiction
Severed Connection
Late nights for days–
unable to sleep or focus or do anything,
racing thoughts down the freeway.
I was thinking of the women I know and how lovely they are,
when something reminded me of you, and I reached out–
and you were excited about the people
who still matter to you
I slept last night.
No more racing.
I was thinking how I used to be part of your life,
and how quietly you slipped away.
You didn’t even leave a note.
I sat in a chair,
thinking at nothing,
until I felt bad
Bitter thoughts may be cruel–
but joy is no ally.
The good days are a Trojan Horse.
The bad days are reality.
And each day rewrites the last,
except when emptiness comes–
and both inside and outside the horse,
there is
nothing.
Sign/Signified
I’ve been thinking,
Lately–
I never wrote you a poem.
It’s strange to me.
I usually write my lovers poems.
But I’ll admit
I kept you at arm’s length.
I think being friends with you
Has made me feel closer to you.
And I feel the kind of love I want to feel:
Not the terrifying, heart-palpitating
Need
Of a new relationship,
But I admire you.
I think you are everything I want to be.
It’s challenging,
Writing a poem for someone.
You may love some tiny, offhand detail about their person,
And they’ll say, “that’s not me.”
And then you must reconcile [them] with them.
And I’ll always wonder
If I love [you] or you.
And now I’ve written a poem for you—
Or maybe for [you]—
And though I'm not sure the difference is clear,
I’ve forgotten what I intended to say,
Having gotten lost in sweet memories
Of happy smiles on your face.
Sometimes
I finished reading and slipped to the back of the crowd.
“I didn’t know you wrote poetry.”
We were both surprised.
I thought everyone wrote poetry.
Years ago, a friend and I floated down a river in Missouri,
love taking shape in the air between us—
“I’ve noticed you don’t speak with proper grammar,” she observed, approvingly.
“John Dryden can go fuck himself,” I replied,
“The way people speak is what is magical about language.”
I ain't worried too much about grammar—
But I spell as good as I can.
Grammar’s like color theory:
useful, sure, but not the thing itself.
It helps you tell the difference between
"I liked what she said"
and
"Her words caught me,
held me up in the light of her living."
My brother, when we were kids, would irritate our mother
Saying “I gots a new basketball,” looking her right in the eye.
I never cared much for the word myself—
But I wouldn’t have punished him for speaking his truth.
She wanted us to bear the markers
of civilized society,
But–
As Ross might have said,
I gots no time for that.
I’d be shocked
To find anyone
who never sang in place of speaking.
So Many Reasons Why
When they diagnosed me I was in the middle of my divorce
Astonished at how I had come to find myself
In that time and place
I told my girlfriend I was extremely lucky. She said, no, I had worked hard to get where I was.
I watched a Palestinian child sob and shiver
On the dirt floor of a hospital tent
Her skin burned away. No anesthetic. No triage. No comfort.
I try to imagine what that feels like.
I fail.
My mom likes to say she worked hard to get where she is. She wasn’t lucky.
I think about Victor Jara. Somos cinco mil.
I try–and fail–to imagine how it feels
To sing for a better world,
And be forced to play guitar with no fingernails.
Maybe knowing you are forsaken is worse.
Maybe it’s the fingernail thing.
The national guard shot four year old Tanya Blanding with a tank while she hid in her living room.
A cop shot twelve year old Michael Ellerbe in the back.
Cops only come for me with warnings about driving too fast.
I’ve never even seen a police car at my parents’ house in the sticks.
My parents both told me I worked hard to get where I am.
They didn’t like hearing me say that I’m lucky.
When Adam and I got arrested
The cops knew his dad. (“Aren’t you Hot Rod’s boy?”)
They booked us and charged us and a few weeks later
The court case vanished into thin air
My parents say it wasn’t luck–it was because they hired a lawyer
When I was a child I had a good friend
His dad, in childhood, had been my dad’s good friend
My dad would take me into the woods and teach me to identify
Trees and plants and animal tracks
His dad taught him to buy his Sunday beer on Saturday and huff gasoline to get high.
I once drove by my friend’s house–not too long ago–intending to stop
I passed by instead
That evening my phone rang again and again
Where was I? Where was my friend?
His parents and siblings had been murdered.
The cops held him and did everything they could to get him to confess.
He still can’t convince himself they were wrong.
When I was a kid my parents bought an acre of land from Dad’s uncle for one dollar.
Gallery View
White names on black backgrounds
Silence
“What can we say about the way this writer uses pathos?”
Silence
White names on black backgrounds
John is the only one who talks
John is speaking up again.
“I think the author sounds disappointed.”
John is speaking up again.
John is the only one who talks.
One student in the classroom.
One set of eyes to contact.
One locus of discomfort to fill the silence
One presence to reassure
White names on black backgrounds
Silence
“How is everybody feeling today? Let’s take a few minutes to chat and warm up.”
Silence
White names on black backgrounds
I. Nothing Exists
I. NOTHING EXISTS
I remember the astonishment I felt at your interest in me. I, a lowly worm, you a bird of paradise. You brought a kind of lightness with you when you came into my life, weighed down as it is by mental illness and a strange kind of consciousness. Points of light in the darkness; weekends punctuating the months with a kind of joy that is hard to find. I told you I wanted to occupy the same physical space in the universe as you.
You left something with me when things were still good. Something you knew, a simple card with the word “YES” written on the front; inside are affirmations that I am loved. I put it on the table on the top of the stairs, to remind me every night when I went up to bed. And now I wonder if I should put it away. You tell me that I’m still loved, but it’s not the kind of love that makes me a priority or makes me feel welcome in your life.
II. EVEN IF SOMETHING EXISTS, IT CANNOT BE KNOWN.
The relationship seemed to fall into place naturally for me. I felt understood. We had deep conversations that felt meaningful about politics and society and finding ourselves within the moments that passed. I felt seen. At any point of connection I could feel how you felt about me. Maybe I wasn’t as warm to you?
And I was insecure. I shrunk myself. If a text went unanswered, it meant you were annoyed with me. It meant that my text messages were a burden. A weight I was tying around your neck; a demand. I saw myself, instead of making plans together, begging for time. And I told myself it was a cruelty towards you to feel this way. My internal dialogue scolded me for looking for ways to manipulate the situation–if I ask for some time while we talk on the phone instead of by text, it will be harder to say no.
III. EVEN IF IT CAN BE KNOWN, IT CANNOT BE COMMUNICATED
I told you recently that I had a revelation of sorts; that I was afraid to want things. It’s more than that. I believe, deep down, if I voice my want for something that thing will be taken away from me and the possibility will be ended. If I want to talk to you then you will stop wanting to talk to me. And now you don’t want to talk to me. I remember how I felt the first time you canceled plans with me. And the first time you told me you weren’t ready to schedule any time with me. “You still like me though, right?” I asked. I feel so stupid for not understanding earlier.
I wonder now if you understand how I’m feeling. That I am heartbroken. Cycling. I haven’t tried to make you aware, but surely you can tell that I’ve had a realization. That I have spiraled a bit. There is a cold kind of bitter anger welling in my heart–a small puddle, but it seems important to recognize. Resentment. I want you to call me so that I can refuse to accept the call. This petty bitter anger comes for me too–I want to go live in a cave and punish myself for this failure.
IV. EVEN IF IT CAN BE COMMUNICATED, IT CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD
This feeling is hard. It’s like I’ve been in the process of breaking up with someone for two years. The hard part, though, is that I have been fighting against myself. Arguing that this isn’t the case. “She probably has a lot going on.” I remember seeing pictures of you at the renaissance faire with other friends on your instagram. It wounded me. Why hadn’t you wanted to go with me? Something from long ago eats at me, “If she wanted to spend time with you, she would make time for you.” Why doesn’t she want to have fun with me? A picture of you with short hair pulled the distance that had grown between us into my mind–I couldn’t ignore that you had cut your hair some time ago and that I hadn’t known. It seemed like something I would have known much sooner just a year before.
At the end of the day the only firmament I had was that I believed I was important. That I warranted a consideration. But when we talked about labels and things not practically changing, it seems we meant that the status quo of the long breakup will be maintained. I had thought it meant we were safe. And I think back on all the times I have been inconsiderate and wonder, “What if…?”
And I want to be angry that you didn’t tell me. I imagine your response, “We talked about not being partners anymore.” But when we became partners we said that it wasn’t changing things. And when you dissolved the partnership, you said that it wasn’t changing things. And I’m angry that I didn’t realize at the time we were lying to ourselves. It did change things. How could it not? I felt an immediate change when you brought up the idea of being partners with me at some nice restaurant I can’t remember. I began convincing myself immediately that nothing would change when you told me on the phone that we wouldn’t be partners anymore. Of course things changed. And I want you to tell me why. And I want you to explain your reason why to my satisfaction. And I want you to justify your explanations. And I want you to convince me.
I just want to occupy the same space as you, where our minds might overlap, and then I might know things to the degree I need to know them.
Why Publish?
To be a writer
To write professionally
To make a buck
To prove that I am a writer
For recognition
For validity
For an audience
For a legacy
To teach
To castigate
To have something to take home and say, “I’m better than the person who left here.”
For competition
For dreams
For disillusionment
For posterity
Because thousands of shitty novels are published every day, and I need to prove to someone that I can write a shitty novel.
Good Workers
“We want our students to be good workers.”
Administration proclaims
But the liberal arts are not suited
To producing good workers
Dreamers, probably
Rebels, maybe
Disappointed idealists, surely
But good workers do not come
From interrogating humanity
Let the admins proclaim what they will.
I want my students to fight.
Re: Meetings
Subject: Availability Poll If everyone could please Respond to the poll By Friday—end of day. Let us know your availability.
Subject: Quick Reminder
And please,
Stop using ‘Reply All.’
Subject: Poll Results Are In
The only shared times
Are two p.m. Tuesday
Or eight a.m. Wednesday.
Subject: Dietary Preferences
Make sure you respond to Susan.
Vegan? No gluten?
She’s ordering lunch
For everyone.
Subject: Update: Tuesday Won’t Work
We’ll have to meet
On Wednesday
At eight a.m.
Subject: Meeting Confirmation
When you arrive,
Please sign in—
To document your presence
At this critical discussion.
Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium 